 From her poem, “White Light (After Sonya Levien),” from “Fragments from the Fire: the Triangle Shirtwaist Company Fire of March 25, 1911,” which won the Walt Whitman Award in 1986.
It's not easy to teach us union. Garment girls shift like sand, start too young in the trade, wait for Prince Charming to take em away. When I arrived from Russia my cheeks like apples. And look now! But talk about a dreaming fool! Me, thirteen in the Golden Land longing to work at Life and Love. Be what you call a builder of bridges. I'd go back, show all Moscow a great American lady. My first position: feeding kerchiefs to machine. First English sentence: "Watch your needle -- 3,000 stitches A minute." I was some swift kid in those days: seventy-two-hundred an hour, eighty-six-thousand pieces A day, four dollars in the pay envelope -- and that the busy season. For three months my pay was bread. I yearned to earn wages, save my little sister's passage, I was so lonely in America. Soon like the rest I grieved at my machine, swore I'd marry any old man just to get out. One by one the others left to marry And returned to Triangle. I saw my future in a white heat light no dreams could soften. Thanks to the folks at Friday’s Folklore for sharing this poem; click here to subscribe. Comments are closed.
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